9ice’s 2011 album Bashorun Gaa exists twice on Apple Music, under the same title, the same release date and an almost identical tracklist, and the two copies name different owners of the recordings. One reads “℗ 2011 Tjoe Records.” The other reads “℗ 2011 AAR,” the current credit on nearly his entire catalogue. Both are live today. No sale, licence, or renaming that would explain the difference exists in any document this desk could find.
The same shape repeats, in different forms, across three more of his best-known records: Versus (The Battle Line is Drawn), Tradition and Gongo Aso. Taken together, the catalogue of one of Nigeria’s most streamed 2000s-era artists carries a rights history that the public registers cannot agree on.
The clearest case: one album, two owners, same day#
Apple’s catalogue carries two separate collections called Bashorun Gaa. Collection 488753337 is 18 tracks, dated 12 December 2011, credited “℗ 2011 Tjoe Records.” Collection 1712491521 is also 18 tracks, also dated 12 December 2011, credited “℗ 2011 AAR,” the abbreviation for Alapomeji Ancestral Records.
These are not two different albums that happen to share a title. Fifteen of the eighteen track titles are character-for-character identical across both collections, in the same running order: Pace Setter, Everyday, 3310, Ori Olowo, Attitude, Simple Strategy, I Rule, Shakashiki, Display, Enife, Omo, Takoto, We Are Ready, Don’t Go, Buje Budanu. The remaining three differ only by a letter or a space: “My Number” against “Mu Number,” “Adigun Ojowon’lo” against “Adigun Ojuwonlo,” “So Fun’won” against “So Fun Won.” That is the signature of one recording entered into a database twice, by two different parties, not of two different recordings.
Deezer’s own catalogue for the artist carries only one Bashorun Gaa, credited to Tjoe Records, UPC 886788371323. It has no AAR-credited duplicate. So the two big registries do not even agree on whether a duplicate exists, only one of them shows it.
It is not a one-off#
Versus (The Battle Line is Drawn), 9ice’s other December 2011 release, a 16-track set built entirely around the format “9ice vs Vip,” “9ice vs Banky W,” “9ice vs 2face Idibia,” is credited to Tjoe Records on both Apple and Deezer. But the rights registry MusicBrainz carries this same title twice in its own release history: once dated 12 December 2011 under Tjoe Records, matching the storefronts, and a second time dated 30 December 2015 under Alapomeji Ancestral Records, four years after the date everyone else agrees the album came out. Bashorun Gaa‘s own MusicBrainz entry also carries that same later date, 30 December 2015, although no label value is attached to it there.
Tradition, from 2009, runs the pattern in reverse. Apple carries an entry dated 5 December 2009 credited to “Alapomeji Records” (not yet “Ancestral”), and a second entry dated 15 March 2009, nine months earlier on the calendar, credited to AAR. MusicBrainz corroborates only the December date and the Alapomeji Records credit; it carries no AAR version of Tradition at all.
Gongo Aso, the 2008 album that remains 9ice’s best-known work, completes the pattern. Two independent catalogues, MusicBrainz and Discogs, agree that the original Nigerian CD, catalogue number AP CD 04, was released on Alapomeji Records. The digital product on sale under that title today, on both Apple and Deezer, carries the AAR credit instead, with no reissue note anywhere explaining the change.
Two real companies, as far as this desk can tell#
Neither name in this story is a placeholder or a metadata typo. Tjoe Records, listed in a trade directory under the fuller name T-Joe Records & Distribution Limited, describes itself as a Lagos label and physical distributor, and names 9ice directly in its own roster alongside P-Square, Timaya, Bracket, J Martins, Sammy Okposo, Ebiere and the Plantashun Boiz. That listing dates to 2014 and this desk did not confirm the company is still trading.
AAR is the credit on almost everything 9ice has released digitally since, including his most recent single, “Olodumare,” dated 25 September 2025. One release, “Aye Labowo” in August 2022, spells the name out in full: Alapomeji Ancestral Records. It is the only place in any registry checked where the full name appears rather than the abbreviation.
What this desk could not find, anywhere, is the document that would explain how a Tjoe Records credit and an AAR credit came to sit on the same product, on the same day, eighteen tracks deep. The UK’s Companies House register was searched directly for both “Alapomeji” and “Tjoe” on 23 October 2026 and returned no result for either name. That is not proof neither company exists: Nigeria’s Corporate Affairs Commission, where either would most plausibly be registered, has no public search this desk can run, so the absence from the UK register says nothing about the Nigerian one.
What this desk could not establish#
No instrument. There is no documented sale, licence, assignment or renaming between Alapomeji Records, Alapomeji Ancestral Records and Tjoe Records in any source read for this record, and no party connected to either name has issued a public statement about one. Secondary sources describe 9ice founding Alapomeji Records in 2008 and renaming it Alapomeji Ancestral Records in 2015; this desk has not checked either date against a primary document, and nothing above depends on them.
No corroboration either way on Certificate, the 2007 debut that now also carries the AAR credit. MusicBrainz’s own entry for that release carries no label value at all, so there is no second registry to check the current credit against, in either direction.
What this means for artists#
A phonogram credit is read by machines long before any human notices it is wrong. Collecting societies, licensing desks and sync supervisors use the ℗ line to find a rights holder. When two live products of the same recording carry two different names, the systems that pay out do not pause to ask which one is correct, they pay whichever name is attached to whichever delivery.
A rename is not self-explanatory to a database. If a label changes its name, as Alapomeji is reported to have done in 2015, every digital service that already has the old name on file needs that change pushed to it deliberately. Left alone, a storefront keeps the old credit, a distributor pushes the new one, and the result is exactly what this catalogue shows: the same recording living under two names depending on which door you walk through.
Reissuing old masters under a new company name creates a second, permanent record of the first. Nothing in these registries was deleted when AAR’s credit appeared on Certificate, Gongo Aso and Tradition. The older credits are still sitting in MusicBrainz and Discogs, dated and sourced, available to anyone who checks. If a catalogue’s ownership history is going to survive scrutiny, the safest assumption is that every past credit remains checkable forever.
Keep a single, written record of what moved and when. None of the four titles in this story has one. A one-page memorandum naming the old company, the new company, the effective date and the recordings covered would have closed every question this piece raises. It costs nothing to write and a great deal to be without, years later, when a sync licence or a royalty claim needs to show a clean chain of title.
9ice catalogue ownership: quick answers#
Who owns 9ice’s masters?#
No single, undisputed owner is documented across the catalogue checked. Current digital credits mostly read AAR (Alapomeji Ancestral Records); two 2011 titles carry a live, competing Tjoe Records credit on at least one edition each.
Is Tjoe Records a real company?
Yes, as far as this desk could establish. A trade directory names it as a working Lagos label and distributor with a multi-artist roster including 9ice, though this desk did not confirm it is still active today.
Did 9ice’s masters change hands between these companies?#
Not on any document this desk could find. No sale, licence or transfer between Alapomeji Records, Alapomeji Ancestral Records and Tjoe Records has been published by any party named in these credits.
Any document establishing the chain of title, or a statement from a company named in these credits, will be published here and the deal record updated. No party was asked for comment on this piece.